Barcodes are printed digital codes that comprise data. A 2-D (2-dimensional) barcode is a QR (quick response or quick reader) code, a Data Matrix, or a Microsoft Tag, or any barcode that can be decoded as a digital image. Today, 2-D barcodes such as QR codes are popular as they provide a quick means to uniquely identify an object of all types: device, organization, brand name, trademark, website, product, service, user, etc. The types of the object are practically unlimited.
One application of QR codes is to uniquely identify a business card. For many professionals, it is important to keep and manage a large number of business cards for job-related purposes. However, it is a tedious task to manually enter the contact information on just a few business cards. A simple solution is to scan a business card with a scanner or a camera to convert printed words into digital data through OCR (optical character recognition) software.
But most OCR software has a high error rate in reading contact information on business cards. One problem is that the printed fonts in business cards are often artistically designed—it is impossible to design an OCR algorithm to correctly decode all possible designs. Therefore, the OCR approach has a fundamental limitation.
While there were proposals to replace paper business cards (BCs) with digital cards, they have not been successful. In many societies, giving a BC with a proper gesture is an important part of the culture—this is unlikely to change. Therefore, there is a need for digitizing contact information on BCs and transferring them to a computing device.
The problem of inaccurate OCR scanning will disappear if the scanned image is a low-error QRC (QR code) image. Such a QRC is encoded with high redundancy that the image can be decoded practically without error. Printing a low-error QRC on a business card will allow unique and error-free identification of the business card. Further, the QRC image itself may comprise data associated with the business card.
Digitizing contact information on business cards is only a small part of the overall contact-related activities for a professional. Especially in sales and marketing, it is important to maintain a large and active social network for business development.
Today, LinkedIn is a successful professional networking service. However, LinkedIn is not a service that utilizes business cards effectively. The LinkedIn service allows a professional to be visible to a large community. Its service is a “pull” model in which organizations or individuals pull information from the service regarding a particular professional. However, there is also a need for a “push” model in which an individual pushes messages to a group of selected contacts. For enterprises, the push model is actually available as a part of many commercial CRM services. However, there are no push-model services for an individual to manage his contact activities.
Therefore, there is a need for a professional networking service that utilizes QRCs to automate data entry for business cards. The needed service should also allow a push-model service for an individual to manage contact-related activities.